By dawn, the towering cloud of black smoke made it look as if Hollywood was producing a film about its own doomsday.
The first 30 firefighters responding to the blaze showered the sets from three ladder trucks, said Daryl Jacobs, a county Fire Department spokesman. At that time, the water pressure was fine, he said.
By 6:30 a.m., as the fire turned into a conflagration, about 350 to 400 firefighters, with more than 20 ladder trucks and 40 engines, surrounded the area, spraying water-mixed foam retardant. As more firefighters sucked up more water, the water pressure began to drop precipitously.
County Fire Inspector James Barnes got word that some ladder trucks -- designed to jet up to 1,000 gallons a minute into burning buildings -- did not have enough force to reach the core of the flames.
"We all know there were challenges with water," Barnes said. "Whether the fire got bigger as a result, I could not tell you."
Commanders called in two water tanker trucks -- carrying 6,000 and 2,000 gallons -- and two helicopters, which dropped water for about an hour.
Barnes said that with so much equipment trying to converge on the area, many engines had trouble squeezing into the narrow streets. "Back there it's really tight, tight quarters," he said.
The fire burned in the video warehouse until late in the afternoon. A firefighter and a sheriff's deputy suffered minor injuries when they were knocked off their feet by a large explosion in the warehouse about 2:45 p.m., officials said.
As the fire threat receded, officials turned their attention to the problematic lack of water pressure.
Though the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power supplies Universal with water, the park is in unincorporated county territory and maintains its own system of mains, pumps and hydrants.
DWP spokesman Joe Ramallo said the agency tried to boost water pressure from its end, but the effort "had a negligible effect."
The DWP has upgraded its own system to ensure firefighters have sufficient pressure in Griffith Park and parts of the Hollywood Hills.
After a fire in 1990 roared through four acres of the back lot in 1990, Universal Studios installed a large sprinkler system designed to deluge flames, but it didn't seem to work Sunday.
"It appears the fire this morning overwhelmed fire-protection features," Freeman said. He said his department would look into the system.
